


Epiphany Storm

by Winterling42



Series: The Woods [1]
Category: Magic: The Gathering
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Gen, Laws of Physics loosely applied, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-12
Updated: 2017-03-12
Packaged: 2018-10-03 02:22:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10233575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterling42/pseuds/Winterling42
Summary: Ral is minding his own business, working on a thesis in his own spare time, when an unasked-for critic stops by.





	

Ral was scribbling on the white-board of the empty lecture hall, finishing up his own equations where he could step back and see what they _looked_ like. He loved the intricacies and rigor physics demanded, but it was difficult for him to understand his own math until he had scrawled it across several sheets of paper, or better yet, a whiteboard. He’d once used a chalkboard in the basement of the science building when at his most desperate.

The room should have been empty—he’d even double-checked to make sure there weren’t any classes scheduled in here. But there was a shadow in the doorway for a second, and when Ral turned around a guy maybe two years younger than him was leaning back against the wall, watching. “Your second conclusion is wrong,” he said after a moment, and something about his confidence made Ral look again at his equations.

It took him a minute to find the mistake under all his scribbling, but sure enough, there it was. Nothing but a negative transferred when it shouldn’t have been, but it changed the entire outcome of his third conclusion. “Fuck off,” Ral started erasing the erroneous mess, only half speaking to the man at his back. “You saw that in what, three seconds?”

“I hovered in the door for a bit. Call it five.”

Ral laughed, a sound all the more startling because he hadn’t done it in so long. What had it been, two months since the last time he’d been out to drinks with the other grad students under Professor Mizzet? He finished his rough erasure job and started correcting the third conclusion, glancing occasionally at his notes. “What’s your name?” he called over his shoulder. “I haven’t seen you around the labs before.”

There was a silence that lasted so long he had to look up from his math to make sure the stranger hadn’t wandered off. He hadn’t—was still standing by the wall, chewing on his bottom lip with both hands folded in his blue hoodie. “It’s Jace,” he said at last, like the words were teeth pulled from his mouth. “And you’re Ral Zarek.”

Ral put down his marker very slowly, feeling something uncomfortably like unease crawling up his spine. “Oh?” It was an invitation to deescalate the situation, and Jace took it.

“I’ve been attending Physics and Climate, the class Mizzet’s teaching on the first floor. You’re the TA.”

“Right, yeah.” It was actually the class most closely related to Ral’s thesis, but he wasn’t about to start spewing about it to a stranger. “Haven’t seen you in my groups.”

Jace flashed a nervous sort of smile, a student caught out skipping class. “Haven’t been going to yours,” he agreed. “But I mean, if all your math is as sloppy as that…”

From an undergrad, that should have stung a lot more than it did. All Ral felt was a burn more like an invitation to compete. He couldn’t have said what he was competing _for_ , but he hadn’t joined the Izzet League for shits and giggles. “You think you could do better?”

“Give me another five seconds,” Jace said with the tiniest hint of a drawl. He also stepped closer, away from the wall, which felt like a victory in and of itself. “What does electrical radiation have to do with the first law of thermodynamics?”

Ral grinned. “Funny thing, electricity. We just assume we can turn it on and off whenever we want. Circuit opened, circuit closed.”

“Light on, light off.” Jace was standing in front of the nearest row of desks now, his arms crossed and his smile crooked. Ral told himself the quickening of his heart was only his usual passion for the topic.

“But that’s not right, you see. Energy is lost in transit. The established theory states that the energy is lost as heat, but this is the beginning of my proving that _wrong_.”

“But you messed up. You can’t measure electricity that isn’t there.” Jace pointed to the negative in the second conclusion. “You _can_ measure the heat that it gives off.” But then, before Ral could even jump in with an explanation, Jace snapped his fingers. Looked around at Ral and laughed. “You think you can prove a latency, a tendency towards reaction. A surface tension for electricity?”

“That’s it!” In his excitement, Ral might have shouted. Just a little bit. But even Maree had asked for almost ten minutes and several jumbled explanations before she understood. “Trace amounts of energy remain in a circuit _even when it’s open_. It means that, given the equations I’m working on, you could potentially draw electricity out of thin air. Tell it where you want it to go.”

Jace shook his head, running a hand through his horrendous haircut. “And you’re just putting that all over the boards of empty classrooms?”

“I think better in marker,” Ral said, only half joking.

A knock at the open door ruined the moment. “You guys here for Child Psychology?”

From the actual math on the board, clearly they weren’t here for a psych class. Ral cursed and flipped through his notes, tearing out the last page of mistaken conclusion and marking the lost negative with the dry erase pen in his hand. “No, just leaving. Be a minute.”

“No problem.” The speaker came and sat down in the front row of desks. By the time Ral looked up from his notes, Jace had vanished, leaving him alone with an undergrad psych student who was probably looking up neuroses on her phone.

“Thanks for nothing,” Ral muttered to thin air. “And you definitely didn’t do any better than me.”

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” Ral snapped at little at her this time, and ducked out of the room just as two more students filed in. He hesitated in the hallway for a minute, running a list of classrooms through his head and discarding the occupied ones. Every time Jace popped up, Ral made a point of shooing him out of his mind. After all, he didn’t even know the guy. It was stupid to wonder if he’d be able to spot Jace in the big lecture hall Mizzet taught in, tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> I actually....have a lot of timeline notes taken....for this au...watch this space for more Zeleren.


End file.
